Empowered

Some days, things happen that make me feel empowered and excited. For example, let's look at the past 24 hours. Last night I returned home a little after 11:00pm. I had left my phone home and soon went to check for missed calls. I found that I had missed 3 calls and had received 3 text messages and one voice message. I did not recognize the number for one the calls. When I checked my voice message, I learned who the caller was. It was a former professor, Dr. Roper.

Dr. Roper had taught my research methods class back in the Winter of 2007. And it was, in part, because of that class that I decided that research was kind of fun and interesting. And I decided to pursue a field study in India. I credit Dr. Roper for being an influence in my educational course veering towards India and ultimately towards graduate school. She is someone that I respect and appreciate a lot.

When learning that Dr. Roper was the mystery caller, I was surprised and curious to know why she was calling me. And the remainder of her message explained as much. She teaches a graduate level research methods class for the Social Work program and will soon be teaching a lesson about interrater reliability. And she was told that I was the coding "guru" with Flourishing Families and was hoping I could present in her class for 15-20 minutes.

This was and is so exciting to me! To have such an influential professor approach me to present as an expert on an aspect of research methodology when she had been my teacher in such a class is so surreal and empowering to me! I love it. So on Monday, between supervisions, I get to go and teach Social Work graduate students about coding in the Flourishing Families project and how reliability fits in. I'm so excited!

Also, it was empowering to have a former coworker contact me and request me to be a reference and submit a letter of recommendation for her for two graduate programs she was applying for. Apparently her application required the recommendation of someone she had worked with. Somehow, being in a position to write letters of recommendation felt rather empowering.

Teaching was also rather empowering, but mostly just fulfilling. I really enjoyed the class engagement and participation in today's discussion. I even invented an extra credit opportunity and presented it to the class mid-lecture. And I received some unsolicited encouraging feedback from some students in both that class and after the coding class. And hearing that was a nice boon.

So essentially, I'm feeling pretty empowered, and a lot more willing to accept that in some ways I am an adult and a professional. It's a good thing. Also, I'm worried that I may somehow be humbled soon.